Vinculum
by hana-akira
Summary: A bond signifying union or unity; a unifying bond; tie. – —Suguru/Kakeru, 1sentence?, Theme Set C, Incest


Fandom: The Knight in the Area/Area no Kishi  
Title: Vinculum  
Author: hana-akira AKA rurichi  
Character: Aizawa Kakeru, Aizawa Suguru  
Genre: Romance, General  
Rating: 20+  
Warning: OOC, AU, incest, a male liking another male, sexual content mentioned or implied, incest, feelings, Suguru isn't dead  
Prompt: Suguru/Kakeru. 1sentence insanejournal Theme Set C.  
Summary: A bond signifying union or unity; a unifying bond; tie. – —Suguru/Kakeru, 1sentence?, Theme Set C, Incest

A/N: Originally done for the 1sentence challenge, but since because I'm bad with rules, I didn't do one sentences so that's why it's not posted at the community. 'Nii-chan' means 'big brother' and is what Kakeru usually calls Suguru in the English translated manga. 'Otouto' means 'little brother' while 'Imouto' means 'little sister'.

"Character is speaking."  
'Character is thinking.'

—

#01 - Beautiful

And although he calls his little brother a coward, someone who's just running away from his problems instead of confronting them, Suguru still couldn't help but think Kakeru was at his most beautiful when he was playing soccer even when he played alone.

#02 - Heart

"The wedding ring goes on the left ring finger because it's the only finger with a vein that connects to the heart," a six-year-old Kakeru tells a seven-year-old Suguru in a low tone, and Suguru can't help but become captivated by his younger brother's hypnotic voice and words.

#03 - Smile

Suddenly Suguru smiled—a real smile, his first in months—and Kakeru lets himself believe (for a moment) that everything is okay because they are together.

#04 - Feeling

Kakeru knows that the situation he's in is a perfectly normal one—a dinner in an okonomiyaki restaurant shared with Yusuke, his Nii-chan, and Nii-chan's friend Takajo-san; really, just a meal shared with a friend, his big brother, and his big brother's friend—but he can't help but feel awkward when across from him, Yusuke deliberately puts on his pouting face while mentioning once again how 'lonely' he would be at Kamakura without Kakeru, Takajo-san hunches his shoulders, and his older brother stiffens beside him, his back ramrod straight and his hands unnaturally still.

#05 - Knowledge

"He just is, I just am, and we just are," Kakeru says, as if that one sentence explains away everything, and it is only then when she hears those words and sees him with that expression on his face that Seven knows and understands.

#06 - Ageless

There is a sort of ageless quality to Suguru that even as his big brother grows older and taller, becomes more mature and refined, Kakeru knows would never change. He is still Suguru, still Nii-chan, still the same boy Kakeru has always looked up to and loved and even if he no longer really recognizes the older male, the taller boy is still someone Kakeru will always care for.

#07 - Time

_The moment you think of giving up, think of the reason why you held on for so long,_ the self-help book advises Kakeru, his older brother immediately coming to his mind, but Kakeru can't help but think that the reason he's held on for this long is also the same one that's telling him to give up right now and just go already.

#08 - Desire

When he sees Leonardo talk with Kakeru out of the corner of his eye, sees the pair talking privately with Leonardo speaking as if he's known Kakeru his whole life and Kakeru uncomfortably responding in turn, the desire to crush his friend underneath his heel and grind him into nonexistence comes easily to Suguru—so easily, in fact, that when the Kamakura vs. Shukyu match ends, the score is 3-0 in Kamakura's favor and the whole Shukyu soccer team is looking dazedly at him as if they can't believe that someone like him even exists, Leonardo included.

#09 - Dramatic

It's dramatic, loud, and attention-grabbing—yet although Suguru knows he should be all manners of embarrassed when Kakeru brings out sketched pictures of the Japan vs. Brazil match, the truth is, is that he's slightly impressed that Kakeru remembered the exact positions of the defenders, and just a teensy bit flattered that Kakeru attempted to draw him even though his drawing skills leaves a lot to be desired.

#10 - Subdued

Subdued, Kakeru is the perfect picture of submission and obedience, and the darker part of Suguru, the more violent and vindictive, finds the compliant figure before him quite enticing.

#11 - Gold

The World Cup is in their hands, golden and glittering and shimmering, their hands intertwined and heads held high, and it feels like they're literally on top of the world.

#12 - Silver

A glint of silver seemed to briefly flash in Suguru's dark, narrowed eyes before vanishing away, and it was only after it had disappeared that Araki felt he could actually breathe. Araki Ryuichi never brought up the subject of Aizawa Kakeru within Aizawa Suguru's presence ever again.

#13 - Dark

There's something dark about Suguru, something dangerous, something that told Kakeru to not mess with him, bother him, and this is only one of the few reasons why Kakeru never truly tries to get in a fight with his older brother, verbal or physical, if he could help it.

#14 - Light

When Kakeru is eight and he himself is only nine, Suguru picks Kakeru up, and his first thought is that Kakeru is light like a feather, as if he was made of air. His second thought is one of fear, simply because he gets the inexplicable feeling that Kakeru might one day just float away from him.

#15 - Twilight

At twilight, the sun is just below the horizon—the soft, diffused light full of uncertainty and vagueness—and both of them just watch it sink until the sky itself finally darkens.

#16 - Dawn

It dawns on Kakeru as he leisurely takes a well-deserving hot, bubble bath that perhaps instead of saying, "Come in!" he should have said, "I'll be out in a minute!" but by the time his mind catches on to his mistake, Suguru has already come in, his body naked as the day he was born except for the small, white towel that hangs dangerously loose on his hips, before the bathroom door closes resoundingly behind him.

#17 - Power

A very small part of Suguru relishes in the power he has over Kakeru—a very small, very vicious part. Because no matter how many talented soccer players his little brother meets, no matter how many genius or great soccer players he comes to know, the Number 10 is always going to be him to Kakeru.

#18 - Protect

"You blocked me out and turned away, hiding yourself from me. Then I found you again and found out you weren't hiding: you were protecting me from you. But there's something you should know, Kakeru," Suguru said in a husky undertone—his face just inches away from Kakeru's face, his body trapping his younger brother's form against the school building's concrete wall. "I don't need to be protected."

#19 - Courage

When Suguru first tries to massage Kakeru's legs due to Kakeru once again overworking himself during soccer practice, he is uncertain on his ability to actually help the smaller boy, especially when Kakeru starts trembling a few minutes after he has rubbed the soles of the younger male's feet. But then Kakeru says to go on, that gives Suguru all the courage he needs to continue, one half worrying whether he was doing this right and the other half becoming increasingly fascinated by his younger brother's gradual process of becoming a mess—writhing and quietly moaning.

#20 - Faith

Suguru will always be a constant in Kakeru's life. In this, Kakeru has faith. Because Suguru is his brother, and if there is one thing Kakeru knows, it's that Suguru will always be there for him, whether he's so far that Kakeru can barely see the silhouette of his older brother's back or so close that the taller boy could be touched.

#21 - Pray

At times, Kakeru prays—not because he actually believes in a higher being, but in the hopes that someone, anyone hears his unspoken pleas for help, particularly every time Kota somehow always seemed to be able to implicate him in his peeping tom shenanigans, and yet, one way or another, was saved by his older brother—either by being forced to hide away in an empty classroom or the tool shed in the back of the school with him.

#22 - Intensity

Whenever Suguru looks generally in his direction, Kakeru gets the disturbing feeling that his older brother is looking at him, and the stare that comes from those eyes seems to only intensify this fact, solidify it that each time he just had to turn away.

#23 - Cool

A bottle of cold water is pressed to Suguru's forehead, immediately cooling his head down, and it's only a few seconds later that he half-heartedly in exhaustion opens his eyelids to the image of his little brother towering over his prone form, worry and concern written all over the younger boy's face.

#24 - Warm

It's been awhile since Kakeru has hugged him—almost a decade, maybe a little less, maybe a little more—but when he finally does, it feels like it's the best thing that has ever happened to Suguru, and the warmest that he has ever felt.

#25 - Whisper

The night is calling, whispering to him, "Come and play," and Kakeru follows and listens to it, repeatedly going out in the dead of night to practice playing soccer by himself even as Suguru silently looks and doesn't look at him as he passes the taller boy by.

#26 - Secret

"I can't just be a brother to you!" Suguru shouts at Kakeru as he slams the younger boy against the door—his face half-crazy and half-desperate—and suddenly everything is out in the open and Suguru's secret is out of the bag.

#27 - Promise

Their bodies are pressed against each other's—Suguru's on top of Kakeru's, their breaths mingling until they are one and the same—and this, too, is a promise, isn't it. It's a promise, and both of them are going to keep it.

#28 - Strength

Suguru is strong enough to cage him, to pin him down and break him—he can feel it whenever Suguru touches him, holds him with a kind cruelty that refuses to let go, to leave, and so Kakeru lets him because in a way he's strong, too, to let his older brother do this to him.

#29 - Weakness

"Raisin cookies that look like chocolate chip cookies are the main reason I have trust issues," his older brother says with a straight face and a bland voice, and although Kakeru knows that this is what Suguru is like all the time around him, he still can't help himself going just a little bit weak in the knees when the taller boy states point-blank with no shame that he has a sweet tooth.

#30 - Love

_Is this what it's like to be in love?_ Kakeru thinks, the feeling heavy, so very heavy that he can't help but feel humans aren't meant to feel such a thing because it's so heavy, so much, too much.

He also can't help but feel that Suguru is waiting for the weight to weaken him, to cripple him and make him fall. And that his older brother is just biding his time, patiently and quietly, because he would kill just to see him fall.

#31 - Hate

He doesn't hate Seven—in fact, to an extent, they are friends, or at least were friends a long time ago. What Suguru hates, though, is how she thinks she can just come back into his life (and by an extension, Kakeru's life) as if she has always been there and expects to be treated as kindly as she was when he first met her. As if because she was a girl that excused her for never sending any letters to him or his little brother, for never emailing or calling them on the phone. This presumption that just because he knew her once upon a time, he'd still be her friend even though she never kept in contact and never really tried to (and yes, he knew that Seven didn't try to because Kakeru constantly kept sending letters to her address in America and never received a response).

So when he tells her to choose U.S. citizenship over Japanese, tells her to represent America since it'd be easier to win the World Cup Trophy, it's not really out of hate. Honest. It's just common sense and logical advice.

(And if he feels satisfaction at the obvious doubt that was now apparent on the younger girl's face and no regret in his choice for never telling his little brother where he got those bracelets from when he was younger, well, that just couldn't be helped, could it?)

#32 - Silence

The silence scares Kakeru the most because it always screams the truth, the reality he does not want and wishes he could just tune out. He is safe in sound, in noise—nothing and no one is able to touch him in those moments—because it is only then that he can tell himself that what he's doing is worth it, that everything will eventually pay off in the end. With silence, there is a sense of finality to it—an end—inevitable and inescapable, as if there is no other possibility except for one.

This is only one of many reasons he can no longer look at his older brother in the eyes, no longer have the nerve to look at the indifferent and voiceless façade that has become customary to be Suguru's face.

#33 - Distress

Kakeru is not a damsel-in-distress, a princess that needs to rescued, and he really wishes his older brother would stop treating him as one by always carrying him bridal-style when he just overworks a little even if it feels really nice to be held in Suguru's arms.

#34 - Fate

"Who knows? The two of them might be fate," Akira says nonchalantly, shrugging his shoulders when the other Kamakura High soccer players once again asked him what was with the Aizawa Brothers; how could a duo such as them exist, how was it possible for two people to be so extraordinary and so complementary? Aizawa Suguru they could understand—they've seen him a long time in coming. But Aizawa Kakeru? He'd come out of nowhere, and took every single one of them by the storm.

Away from the rest of the team, the two brothers bump their elbows together and laugh, both of them with the most brilliant smiles on their faces. And even though Akira knows privately exactly what those two brothers are, he also knows he will never tell.

#35 - Fortune

"Oh? What's this? It seems that there's a tall, dark, and handsome young man in your life who seems to be quite strict towards you. Both of you seem to be in the same club, with you being the manager and him being the ace. A… sports club, I believe? Soccer to be precise?" the fortuneteller tells Kakeru slyly, her nails gently tapping against her crystal ball. Both of them are sitting down on folded chairs, with Kota hanging his jaw open in disbelief and Yusuke widening his eyes in realization behind Kakeru's frozen form. The exotic woman continues on, unaware of the bomb she has just dropped on the three teenage boys, a strange glint gleaming in her eyes.

"And it seems he has quite the complex over you. A crush, perhaps? He expects a lot from you, and has many things in mind that involves you and only you. The two of you are quite close, aren't you? Almost… lovers, but not, right?" She says in a smug tone and Kakeru can only inwardly scream and question why even though she was so wrong in one half, but so right in the other?

#36 - Nightmare

It's only a nightmare, Suguru tells himself even as he wakes up from another restless night of sleep, out of breath and out of his mind. Only a nightmare that he was alone on the soccer field, that there was no one he could pass the soccer ball to. Only a nightmare that instead of beside him, Kakeru was on the sidelines watching as a spectator, an onlooker. Yet why did it feel so real?

#37 - Justice

"It doesn't have to make sense to them as long as it makes sense to us," Suguru says in a resolute tone, and he sounds so justified that Kakeru can't help but think and feel that his older brother is right.

#38 - Death

_Is it possible for someone to die of sexual frustration and embarrassment at the same time?_ Suguru wonders, his back pressed against the train's doors with his younger brother literally pushed right up against him, Kakeru's head right over his heart. He closed his eyes, and desperately hoped his younger brother didn't look down even as the smaller boy kept moving and their chests seemed to keep _touching_.

#39 - Moon

Moonlight streams through the window with white light, bathing his older brother in its radiance—somehow making Suguru both eerie and ethereal, a dream made of quicksilver—before Kakeru is finally able to blink, collect himself, and tell his older brother by the bedroom window that it's time for dinner.

#40 - Sun

_There's sunshine in your smile_, an afterthought in Suguru's mind as he observes Kakeru faintly smiling while they're window shopping, his younger brother touching the glass windows lightly as if they were something precious that just might disappear the moment he stopped looking.

#41 - Star

There is this saying that all everyone sees of stars are their old photographs, just the aftermath of something that even in its death it would continue to shine, and it is this one single thought that Suguru has when he finally knows what his younger brother is really like.

(And he can't help but wonder if Kakeru had wasted away, all those years ago.)

#42 - Tower

On the soccer field, his older brother stands like a tower—strong, great, invincible—as if he was born to be a king, to rule and reign, yet Kakeru couldn't help but think Suguru looked incredibly alone and lonely when time and time again it was only him who seemed to be able to get the soccer ball and score.

#43 - Stranger

Kakeru isn't familiar with Suguru's emotions, Suguru doesn't understand Kakeru's way of thinking—both of them strangers to each other—but in the end, given enough time, this, too, shall pass.

#44 - Familiar

The smell of hair. The corners of a mouth. Wide shoulders. A smooth back. A deep voice. Familiar patterns. The conversation between his fingertips and Suguru's skin. This is the most important discussion Kakeru knows he will ever have with his older brother.

#45 - Forgotten

At times, Kakeru forgets that he and Suguru are brothers. It's not that hard for him to forget, actually—Suguru may only be a year older, but he's so different in personality and looks that sometimes Kakeru can't help but think that it's a legitimate question whenever Kota asks if they're really brothers, if they're truly related at all. It's even easier to forget because Suguru never calls him 'Otouto' (not that he calls Mito 'Imouto', either, but it's the principle of the thing) and has always called him by his first name—indicating immediately that they were close, though to what extent has always been a mystery to those outside of their family.

(There had been… incidents when they were younger, that still occasionally happened when they happen to be at the same place at the same time. How they used to hold hands when crossing the street, how they used to share all their drinks and food when eating out… the list went on and on until Kakeru finally realized why the people around them usually giggled, blush and shy away, or whisper to each other whenever they saw them together.)

So when he says 'Nii-chan', it's not only for the fact that Suguru is his older brother, but to remind himself that they _are_ brothers in the case that he might genuinely forget one day.

#46 - Memory

"You don't understand," Suguru told the woman, picking up his school bag from the couch, and couldn't help but wonder to himself why he ever approached Mine Ayaka for counseling when she wasn't of any help at all. "Having the same memories is like having proof that you're connected, that you have a bond." His back was towards her now, right in front of the door, and although Ayaka knew that the young man before her was only a middle school student, was just a boy, she couldn't speak or move.

"If Kakeru has lost them…" Suguru continued, his right hand on the doorknob. "How can I myself be sure of them? I can't stand it." He opened the door and the slam that followed it was deafening—the sound of something ending but of what Ayaka did not know.

#47 - Change

Suguru didn't understand why Kakeru's laugh suddenly changed when Kakeru's 8th grade started—didn't understand its heartbroken tone or the falter of his smile. Instead he watched his younger brother and wondered why even though Kakeru was right next to him, they were so far apart.

#48 - Color

Kakeru gets flustered and blushes easily—when he feels embarrassed, humiliated, shy, elated, angry—the appealing red color obvious on his little brother's cheeks, and Suguru can't help but turn it into a trial and error experiment to see if he could see that color spread all over the smaller male's body.

#49 - Shadow

_Why did you run away?_ Suguru wants to ask, wants to know, wants to understand when he's once again left in his younger brother's shadow, but the question he actually wants the answer to is _Why did you leave me behind?_

#50 - Breath

"…I thought I could tolerate being by your side and not touch you," Kakeru confesses to Suguru, their faces just a few centimeters apart, so close that their breaths intermingled with each other's—only for Kakeru to continue to say, "But I… overestimated myself," before he pulled the older boy down to his level.

—

A/N: References or explanations.

#02 - Psychofactz Random Fact #2003 at Tumblr.

#04 - Inspired by manga chapter 17 when Yusuke admits that he'd be lonely without Kakeru at Kamakura High School. Yusuke is trying to incite Suguru's overprotective streak, Akira is trying to hold in his laughter, Suguru is slowly falling for Yusuke's trick, and while Kakeru knows that something is going on, he doesn't know exactly what and doesn't actually want to know.

#05 - "He and I" by Lang Leav.

#09 - Inspired by manga chapter 1 when Kakeru was explaining the Japan vs. Brazil match to the Kamakura Middle School soccer team. Suguru was the one to stop Kakeru, but only because practice already started, not out of an apparent embarrassment.

#17 - Inspired by manga chapter 42 when Kakeru says Number 10 is always going to be Aizawa Suguru.

#29 - Inspired by manga chapter 1 where Kakeru states that Suguru likes desserts and Suguru is shown to eat some pudding.

#31 - Inspired by manga chapter 74 when Suguru tells Seven to play for America instead.

#34 - This is in an alternate reality where Kakeru joined Kamakura High and both Suguru and Kakeru were able to play soccer together.

#35 - The fortuneteller is referring to Suguru. The complex is supposed to be the brother complex Suguru has for Kakeru.

#41 - "All We Ever See Of Stars Are Their Old Photographs" by We Are The Emergency. The title's meaning that I was going for was that we only see what's left behind after a star 'dies', like a fire leaving 'ashes', a star leaves behind an imprint of light, basically 'stardust'. That's the interpretation I was trying to go for.

#45 - Inspired by manga chapter 1 when Kota asks Kakeru if he's actually related to Suguru. In Japan, where honorifics are common when interacting with others, the use of a first name without one usually indicates that the spoken person is quite close to the person whose first name they called without honorifics. Honorifics are, most of the time, used to indicate the type of relationship a person has with someone else.

#46 - Inspired by Golden Days manga chapter 24. What Suguru is referring to about Kakeru losing his memories is of the promise that they'd had to go to the World Cup together in Area no Kishi manga chapter 10. Suguru is frustrated because he's not sure if that promise really happened or if it was just wishful thinking on his part.


End file.
